Gov. Christie's Bridgegate timeline remains unchanged, but holes in his story remain

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks during a ceremony to pass official hosting duties of next year's Super Bowl to representatives from Arizona, Saturday Feb. 1, 2014 in New York. Fellow Republicans are assessing the damage of new allegations that Gov. Christie knew about a traffic-blocking operation orchestrated by top aides. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Whatever the case may be, Christie still has explaining to do why his confidant Regina Egea was forwarded a scathing email authored by Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye about the Fort Lee lane closures and the message failed to make its way to the Republican governor.

Christie reiterated Monday night on his monthly “Ask the Governor” radio program on 101.5 that he first realized something went awry when he read about Foye’s email, in which the executive director calls the lanes closures “abusive” and in violation of laws, in a Wall Street Journal story published on Oct. 1. Egea, who was director of Christie’s Authorities Unit before her promotion was announced, was forwarded the same email on Sept. 13 by the governor’s Port Authority appointee Bill Baroni.

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“I read it in the Wall Street Journal,” Christie said on the radio show, adding he then informed his senior staff to investigate the matter. “When this first became clear to me that this was a potential issue was when the Foye email was put out.”

Christie’s self-proclaimed Bridgegate timeline is difficult for a state assemblyman whose district covers the towns surrounding the George Washington Bridge to accept.

“I find it hard to believe why Regina Egea or anybody else in his inner circle would not tell him during campaign season that this may come up at a campaign stop even,” Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-37) said Tuesday. “Hopefully, the Legislative Select Committee on Investigation will be able to get information from Egea to determine if she did communicate this to anyone else in the inner circle, including the governor.”

Christie repeated on Monday what he stated at his two-hour press conference on Jan. 9, the only other time he has taken direct questions about Bridgegate.

“I think is the most important issue and the most important issue is did I know anything about the plan to close these lanes? Did I authorize it? Did I know about it? Did I approve it?” Christie said. “Did I have any knowledge of it beforehand and the answer is still the same, it’s unequivocally no.”

The state’s leader added there were press accounts of the lane closures when they occurred from Sept. 9 to Sept. 13, but it didn’t rise to the gubernatorial level.

“Whether I read any of those, if I did or heard anything from anybody about traffic, it would not have been meaningful to me,” Christie said, noting there is daily traffic reports. “Back then this was not a major issue. And it became one to me in terms of finding out what was going on when the Foye email came out.”

Johnson said he attended Port Authority Board of Commissioners meetings with other officials the months following the lane closures to seek answers.

“It’s seems highly unlikely to me all this information is out there about the busiest bridge in the world causing traffic chaos in the borough of Fort Lee and surrounding towns impacting the first responders response time and no one is telling the governor about it,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

The governor’s office did not respond for comment.

About the Author

Originally from Webster, N.Y., David has been a reporter in N.J. for the past three years (first in Phillipsburg and now in Trenton).He is a Temple alum who interned at the Philadelphia Daily News. Reach the author at dfoster@trentonian.com
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